NZ Football chief to apologise to Ferns

New Zealand Football will issue face-to-face apologies to the Football Ferns next week, as they begin to heal the wounds from the tumultuous Andreas Heraf reign.

The national body have also engaged the services of a former Warriors mental skills coach, who will facilitate workshops with the players as they attempt to move on from the events of this year.

When the Ferns assemble next week ahead of the Oceania Women’s Nations Cup under new coach Tom Sermanni, it will be the first time the team has been together since that dramatic camp in Wellington in June, which culminated in the 4-1 loss to Japan and the controversial post-match comments by Heraf.

That was the nadir of the disastrous Heraf reign, and the events of that week, as well as serious misgivings about the environment on the March tour to Spain, led many players to decide enough was enough.

As the Herald revealed in June, 12 players wrote letters of complaint about Heraf, with allegations about bullying, intimidation and a culture of fear. They also told NZF they wouldn’t play again under Heraf. That sparked a series of events, including the resignations of Heraf and chief executive Andy Martin, and prompted an independent review into NZF.

Employment lawyer Phillipa Muir concluded the players’ complaints were “genuine and largely substantiated”. Among other things, Muir found the Austrian failed to respect “the rights, dignity and worth” of some players and “offended, humiliated or intimidated” others in the squad. She concluded such repeated and unreasonable behaviour constituted bullying by Heraf.

That’s prompted NZF’s initiative next Tuesday, when interim chief executive Andrew Pragnell will front personal apologies to each member of the squad.

Following that, mental skills and performance specialist Aaron Walsh will run a series of sessions with the team. Walsh was the mental skills coach with the Warriors last season, and works with players in three Major League Baseball teams, Auckland Cricket and some professional golfers.

“He is going to take the players for the first day of the camp and go through that process,” said Sermanni. “Hopefully when we start the camp, it is a case of moving on. We might not have healed everything, maybe there is still some feelings, but it is time to move on.

But what exactly will Walsh cover? “His brief will be deal with what these issues have been and put them to bed,” said Sermanni. “That doesn’t mean everyone is going to be happy, jumping around and high fives, but it is about getting a consensus of . . . ‘okay, this has happened, this is how we try to fix it, and we are moving forward so we can then go forward from that’. Hopefully Aaron will cover all those wounds and help heal them.”

Sermanni is confident that, with time, the team can forge a new path.

“The players have gone through a difficult time, either individually or collectively,” said Sermanni. “But in the end, they want to play football, play for their country. That’s all still there. They are looking for a new start and they want to be back in an environment that they want to be part of. My job is to help create that environment.”

The Ferns have a four-day training camp in Auckland before departing for New Caledonia. They have group games against Tonga, the Cook Islands and Fiji. The final is on December 1.